Reagan: Part Fixer, Part Hatchet Man

By Jacob V. Lamar

It was the sort of careless quip for which Ronald Reagan has become infamous. But while past remarks about nuking the Soviets or lying to Congress only caused embarrassment for the President, the tasteless wisecrack Reagan delivered last week ignited a minor political storm. At a White House press conference, a reporter working for a journal published by Extremist Lyndon LaRouche asked the President about rumors that Michael Dukakis once sought psychological help. "Look," Reagan replied with a smile, "I'm not going to pick on an invalid."

Although the President feebly apologized for his remark -- "I think I was kidding, but I don't think I should have said what I said" -- the incident gave yet another negative twist to the 1988 campaign. It also suggested that Reagan, unless carefully managed, could wind up hurting Vice President George Bush while trying to help in the fall election. Last week Reagan played politics in dealing with both the defense budget and the plant-closings bill. With Bush trailing by as much as 18 points in the polls, the campaign has plainly turned into a game of hardball, and the G.O.P.'s most seasoned hurler has taken the mound. "Suddenly," said a Dukakis aide, "Reagan has been much more forcefully deployed."

For the past month, the LaRouche cult has been spreading allegations, totally unsubstantiated, that Dukakis received psychiatric treatment for depression after the death of his brother Stelian in 1973 and after his defeat for re-election as Governor in 1978. Most major news organizations refrained from trafficking in the speculation, but the issue was set simmering when Dukakis, citing personal privacy, balked at releasing his medical records. The Bush campaign then pointedly released a statement describing the Vice President's health as "excellent and vigorous." Bush operatives called news organizations, including TIME, to suggest follow-up stories about Dukakis' medical records or his brother's death. But what finally propelled the story onto Page One was Reagan's remark.

At a Boston news conference, Dukakis tried to quash the rumors once and for all. "I've never gotten any professional counseling," the Governor said. "I normally look to my family for support when I need it." Dukakis also seized the opportunity to rise magnanimously above Reagan. "We all occasionally misspeak," he said. "I don't really think the President had to apologize." Gerald Plotkin, Dukakis' doctor since 1971, released a detailed three-page report pronouncing Dukakis "in excellent health and physical shape." Wrote Plotkin: "He has had no psychological symptoms, complaints or treatment." Before the week ended, Dukakis set aside his resistance to releasing medical records and made known everything in Plotkin's file. All that remained unreleased, Plotkin said, were prescriptions.

The controversy highlighted the strange social stigma that is still attached to psychological counseling. After two terrible losses -- first of a brother, then of public office -- it would be understandable if Dukakis felt the need for some professional guidance. Seeking such help might, in fact, be a sign of emotional strength. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, each year 15.5 million American adults visit mental-health-care practitioners; few are invalids.

Whether by accident or by design, Reagan has been cast as the Republicans' genial hatchet man. The invalid innuendo shows how effective he can be in raising an issue. In his opening address to the New Orleans convention next Monday, Reagan is expected to set the rhetorical tone with a frontal attack on Dukakis for being an old-fashioned liberal. While Bush -- and just about any other American politician -- may appear cruel attacking a rival, the charismatic Reagan has the power to excoriate his opponents without alienating the public.

Reagan also played the part of fixer last week, blurring the line between principle and politics to assist the Vice President. Responding to entreaties from the Bush campaign, he declined to veto a trade bill requiring that manufacturers give workers 60 days' notice before shutting down a plant. Last May the President rejected an earlier version of the bill because it contained . the plant-closing provision. At the Democratic Convention, one speaker after another brought up the plant-closing issue to paint Reagan as an enemy of workingmen and -women. With polls showing 80% of Americans favoring the bill, Republican Senators began to get nervous and told Reagan that the party was in a no-win situation. Although he called the bill "counterproductive" and "bad legislation," Reagan nevertheless agreed to let it become law. The day after relenting on plant closings, Reagan responded to Bush campaign requests by vetoing a $299.5 billion Pentagon budget bill. The President denounced the "liberals in Congress" who he said were attempting to "erode our military strength." Actually, Reagan's Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci had helped work out the bipartisan measure.

The veto was primarily a Reagan-Bush effort to hit the Democrats where they might be vulnerable: their reputed softness on defense. Democrats returned fire. "Politics should not be the guide for nor the basis for national- security decisions," said Sam Nunn, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Now who do we work with to get an appropriations bill that can be signed into law? Do we go and confer with Robert Teeter, the pollster for the Vice President?"

The White House-Bush teamwork should intensify with James Baker assuming command of the Vice President's campaign. Last Friday Baker resigned as Treasury Secretary and former New Jersey Senator Nicholas Brady was named to replace him. "You've been a secret of our success," the President told Baker, who served as Reagan's 1980 campaign chairman and first White House chief of staff. "Now, Jim, go do it for George."

"Some of what we did this week was political," conceded a Reagan aide. "We ought to be making decisions to help Bush. There's no reason for us to be afraid to score political points." But there is some question as to just how valuable the President will be to Bush. "It's the old shadow problem," says Dukakis Spokesman Dayton Duncan. "Every time Reagan commands the news, it reinforces what everyone recognizes is one of George Bush's principal problems: he's not Ronald Reagan."

With reporting by Michael Duffy with Dukakis and Nancy Traver/Washington